The Moving Picture Weekly (1917-1919)

is THE MOVING PICTURE WEEKLY What Are You Doing Aboot Li Here is an appropriate setting for a patriotic event. It was mad i at the Saperba Theatre, Los Angeles, while Harry Carey was playing there, in "Ace of the Saddle", but it is a good one tor any theatre to copy for Lincoln1 s Birthday. J7CHOES of the inspiring Americanization meeting held a few weeks ago at the Waldorf, where Secretary Lane called so earnestly to the motion picture industry, are still reverberating around the country and hundreds of exhibitors have pledged themselves to assist in carrying out the programme which the Secretary asked for, starting with Lincoln's Birthday. In part Secretary Lane said: "The Americanization movement, as I interpret it, is not a movement to promote any ism except Americanism, it is not a movement to condemn any ism excepting a movement which is against the fundamentals of our government and we have but one fundamental and that is a supreme reverence for the united will of a united people. "You are justifiably proud of the fact that as a man you have gotten into the fight for the Liberty Loan and that as a man vou got into the fight in support of the morale of the nation at the time we entered the war and throughout the war. No single service was more valuable than yours. I do not know any one that was perhaps as valuable. "You did that and are proud of it because it was something big and noble and fine, because you were challenged on the noble side of your nature, and I want to tell you that you can produce just the same effect upon the people ot the United States, 110,000,000 of them, by challenging them upon the noble side of their natures. "We know that there are certain fundamental things to be done. We know we have 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 illiterates in the United States; we know that one-quarter of the boys that went in the first 1,600,000 men in the army could not write a letter home and could not read an order, and we know that that is a humiliation and a disgrace in a democracy such as ours. "Do not preach the doctrine that America is a perfect land. It is not. Do not preach the doctrine that all men in America are upon an equality. They are not, excepting before the law. Do not preach the doctrine that the institutions of the United States Secretary Lane calls on the Industry to start the Amer i conization Drive on that Day. are to-day what they will be 100 years from now. They are not. America is a growing country, because man is a growing thing, and as man expands, so this nation will expand. "I say that you can put into a moving picture the life of any man of achievement, of any man who has done well, of any man who has done things for which we are grateful, and you are preaching Americanism. Do not think that this thing must be put in the form of propaganda. The less formalistic it is the better. You want to show by the life of America what Americanism is. You want to show, I repeat, by the fife of the American what Americanization is. You cannot cram dogma and doctrine down the throats of people and ask them to memorize Lincoln's Gettysburg speech and then declare themselves to be Americans. "I would like to see you gentlemen take some serious action toward the celebration collectively of Lincoln Day this year. There is one way by which a religion can be preached, and practically only one, and that is not by abstraction but it is by visualizing a principal. Lincoln has become a principle. Why shouldn't there be a celebration of Lincoln's Birthday in every one of the 14,000 or 18,000 moving picture houses in the United States?" Numberless suggestions were made to start the drive and to keep it going once it started. Among them all the committee chose the Lincoln's Birthday suggestion as the best and most practical of early realization. The American Legion can be counted on to provide a speaker if vou want one. The old four-minute men organization is still intact in some localities. See the old leader of the four-minute men and ask him to help. But get some one to help you to make a little ceremony of this Lincoln's Birthday. Decorate your theatre for it with flags. An example is displayed on this page. Get some Lincoln film if you can. But have something patriotic on your programme and advertise it. Make Lincoln's Birthday one to be long remembered. Then when you put this over there will be lots more to do. This is just the start.